On 10 November 2005, CORDIS, the European Union's official information service on research and innovation, changed its home address from http://www.cordis.lu to http://cordis.europa.eu.int. This URL now corresponds to a standard entrance page, including language options, as with other Europa family EU web-sites.

The scale of the move means that some URLs, or web addresses, of CORDIS pages will still be visible with their old address, but gradually all will be changed to begin with the 'cordis.europa.eu.int' sequence. The '.int' extension will eventually be dropped, when '.eu' becomes available as the equivalent of a country-code for web-sites in the European Union in early 2006.

The move should not affect CORDIS users, however, because an automatic routing system will ensure that the old 'cordis.lu' addresses (and thus any hyperlinks to such addresses) remain operational until April 2006. As always, 'deep' links to low-level pages should be avoided.

-A leaflet with Guidelines on how to correctly record personnel costs within FP6 projects was published 25/12/2005: Recording Hours Guideline

-Overheads are not understood well by the majority of organisations that take part in the Sixth Framework Program. It is not understood how, just by calculating your overheads correctly, you could claim higher funding for the same work. EFPConsulting have produced a Paper which tries to explain the whole subject in a clear manner. “Overhead Calculations within FP6”Paper – published 09/01/2006

EFPConsulting are partners in a new project called EPISTEP. This project is to assist SMEs in participating in the activities of three of the new European Technology Platforms. ETPs will play a major part in the new Framework Program 7 that will start at the end of 2006.

What are Technology Platforms?

The concept was introduced by the Commission Communication on “Investing in research: an action plan for Europe” by allocating 3% of GDP for research. Their aim is to provide the means to foster effective public-private partnerships between the research community, industry, financial institutions, users and policy-makers, in order to mobilise the research and innovation effort and facilitate the emergence of “lead markets” in Europe.

The European Council then invited the Commission to set up a limited set of ETPs

What is their aim?

ETP is a mechanism that brings together the main stakeholders in an RTD field to identify common RTD goals of industrial relevance and to develop a road map to achieve these goals. This roadmap will address technology & non-technology barriers. Stakeholders include industry, academia and the investors in research, public or private.

ETPs are mechanisms for the industrial and academic Community, and developed by the Community.

How are ETPs selected?

Specific ETPs were to be considered where there are clearly identified outcomes from RTD coordination strengthening industrial competitiveness, addressing societal challenges and a need was identified for consensus building e.g. to develop standards as well as a need to coordinate with other research funding bodies, in the Member States and e.g. Eureka, etc.

ETPs were only meaningful where coordination is feasible by for example there being a well identified research and industrial community ready to collaborate in developing a roadmap and to engage in its implementation. Also it had to be shown that industry is clearly committed to invest in the research roadmap with involvement at the highest level – ETPS are NOT just to be forums for discussion or advisory groups.

Finally areas were only to be chosen where technology progress has to be articulated with other actions such as the regulatory framework and uptake measures.

EPISTEP is all about supporting SMEs participation in projects arising from IST European Technology Platforms (ETPs).

Which EPTs does our project cover?

So far three initiatives

• Nanoelectronics via the ENIAC ETP

• Embedded systems via ARTEMIS ETP

• Mobile and wireless Technologies via the eMobility ETP.

Individual companies can join the ETPs and participate in their activities. They can do this at two levels:

As core members participating in the management of the ETP; or as active members attending and contributing to their various working groups and committees. However either of the above activity has to be self funded and for most SMEs, this may be difficult, particularly for those that are more geographically remote from Brussels. EPISTEP will endeavour to act as an intermediary or a proxy on their behalf to ensure their views are taken into account and they do not miss out in activities or resulting project opportunities..

A brief overview of the project objectives follows:

EPISTEP

Enhanced participation of SMEs in IST European Technology Platforms

What is EPISTEP?

The EPISTEP project has the objective to enable SME participation in the Sixth and Seventh Framework Programme with the goal to enhance their presence in IST European Technology Platforms (ETP).

ETPs addressed in the EPISTEP project are:

·Mobile Communications (e-Mobility)

·Embedded Systems (ARTEMIS)

·Nano-electronics (ENIAC)

What can EPISTEP do for SMEs?

The main activities carried out by the EPISTEP Partners, in order to support participation of SMEs in IST European Technology Platforms are:

-Organization of Missions to meet platform actors, in order to engage SMEs with ETPs

-Organization of Brokerage Events and Information Stands at major conferences concerning these three areas whereSMEs will have the opportunity to network with other interested organisations

-Organization of National Workshops and Training sessions which will raise awareness and training of SMEs

-Provision of Technical Assistance and a Help Desk to advise on administrative procedures and contractual issues of participating in IST projects and to support proposal writing

-Creation of a Database with at least 1500 SMEs operating in the IST ETP sectors and identification of their particular needs for development and international co-operation in the field

-Creation of a

-Web Portal with a partner search facility and a news section about calls for proposals, info-days, conferences, brokerage events and links to relevant web sites

-Identification of the IST ETP projects and calls for proposals which can be of interest to the SMEs